


For the Increase of Charity

by TheMuchTooMerryMaiden



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Frightfest 2013, Gen, Ghosts, Really quite sad, References to the death of children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 01:47:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMuchTooMerryMaiden/pseuds/TheMuchTooMerryMaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cases involving children always seem to really get to Hathaway...</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Increase of Charity

James let his head thump back against the wall and swore, nothing he tried seemed to help. His fingertips were smarting with little cuts and nicks where he’d tried to get his fingers under the little door to get some purchase on it and get the damned thing open; it hadn’t helped, the door was still obstinately closed. Earlier, when it was still light, when there might just be people around he’d shouted until his voice gave out; either no one had been passing or no one had heard. Now, even trying to be positive he couldn’t call it anything other than dark and the chances of anyone passing were slim indeed.

Of course once he’d stopped trying to break the door down, stopped trying to open the door, stopped shouting and thumping he began to realise just how cold it was getting now the sun had set.

“Just sodding perfect,” he muttered as he felt the first shiver run through him, “I’m going to bloody freeze to death before morning if I’m not lucky.” Once he’d had the thought it seemed to get stuck in his mind, and no matter how many times he told himself that it was only bloody October and he was at least inside and he was young and fit, his mind suggested images of every poor bloody unfortunate he’d been called to after a cold night. There wasn’t even room to move around enough to generate a bit of warmth, the attic space he was in was tiny. 

“What do they always tell you in training, James?” he asked himself, “That’s right, don’t go off on your own and if you must make sure that someone knows where you are. And did you do either, you bloody idiot? No, of course you didn’t. It’s no use thinking nothing could go wrong is it, because it has and precisely no one is even looking for you.”

 

Robbie Lewis was just a little bit worried about James. He’d tried ringing him and got no answer, not sinister in and off itself and it was just a niggling concern but if asked he would have had to admit that he was worried. 

The case they were working on was potentially a nasty one. Two very small, almost mummified bodies and very little in the way of evidence, Laura hadn’t even been able to give them much of an idea of how long the poor little sods had been dead, according to her they could be anywhere from 19th Century to six months, depending on how and where they’d been kept. She’d know better after the weekend, when she had access to scanners and the like but for now they had to treat it like it was recent, treat it like it was a murder. James had taken it badly, he always did with children and every time it made Robbie wonder exactly what had gone on at Crevecoeur, why James never spoke of his family if he could possibly help it.

The bodies had been found on a regular fly-tipping site, foot prints and rubbish from a hundred different people, from half of the bloody county, the poor bugger who’d found them had three or four bin bags in the back of his Fiesta but nobody had made an issue of it. Uniform were going through the rubbish to try and find something that would give them an address to start with, but it seemed like fly-tippers were wise to leaving identifying papers in the rubbish they dumped. 

It was the incongruity of the thing that had really nagged at both of them.

“I mean,” James had said, “they’ve been kept somewhere secure, they’ve been ‘looked after’ for who knows how long and now they’re just dumped? How does that happen?”

“I dunno,” Robbie had replied, “someone was going to find out? Is it possible that someone moved them without knowing what they were?”

James looked at him sceptically,

“Well,” he said smoothing at his hair, “I didn’t say it was likely,” he paused thinking it through, “could be someone else found them and dumped them.”

James had sighed,

“You’re probably right.” There had been a long pause before James spoke again, “I really hope this turns out to be historical, I mean I know that we’ll probably never know what happened but, you know, somehow it’s better if it happened so far back that we couldn’t have helped them, I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel as bad when it’s like that.”

Robbie had agreed, well at least partially, knowing that he couldn’t have helped, that the two had possibly been dead since before he was on the force would mean that he could maintain more distance, but also it made it next to impossible that they’d find who did it or even possibly what had been done; there would probably be nagging loose ends.

 

It was absolutely pitch-black now in the little attic space and James was aware of every minute gap that was letting the wind sneak in. James had wedged himself into the least draughty corner and curled up into as tight a ball as he could to conserve heat. It really had been stupid to come up here on his own, but the sight of the cottage, decrepit and waiting for demolition had stuck with him when he’d tried to do anything else. Lewis’ idea that perhaps the bodies had been found and dumped by someone who didn’t want the hassle and the thought of the cottage suddenly clicked and he’d set off to look without really thinking about it.

It was a wreck and he could see that demolition really was the only choice. The doors were not even slightly secure and there were footprints in and out of them, James made a mental note to get on to the developers and take them to task about it, kids playing in here could easily hurt themselves. 

James had stood at the bottom of the stairs trying to weigh up if they were safe or not, he’d finally gone up them very carefully, keeping as close to the wall as he could figuring that would be the safest. The one set of footprints upstairs told him that he wasn’t the first person up here recently, and also told him that most of the others had had more sense. 

The upstairs room followed the line of the roof, diminishing to a height of no more than three feet at the side of the room. He followed the footsteps and in the gloom he didn’t see the door until he was right in front of it. It would he knew lead into the roof-space. It was also clear that the door had been opened recently, there were scrape marks in the dust. He pried the door open and looked into the space, making out a tangle of fabric at the edge. The door must have closed when he tried to make his way onto the joists and slipped. And so here he was.

“I just have to keep body and soul together until the morning then I’m bound to be able to attract someone’s attention or kick my way out when I can see enough to be sure I’m not going to fall two storeys to my death.” 

It was stupid, but somehow he felt better for the sound of his own voice, hoarse though it was and much though he knew it wasn’t actually helping anything. With that thought he decided that perhaps singing would help him keep his spirits up, it wasn’t like there was anyone to hear him.

James had gone through the Beatles greatest hits and Bowie’s more melodic offerings before he began to sing the hymns of his youth, the ones his mum had called ‘trendy’, the ones that came to prominence when the Pope visited England. He’d been five when his mother had taken him all the way to Manchester and they’d heard the Mass and he’d watched the twelve priests be ordained, really his desire to be a priest had crystallised then.

When he’d exhausted ‘How lovely on the mountain are the feet of him’ his mind turned to older hymns the one’s his mother had sung. He knew he was drifting off to sleep but he’d decided earlier that it wasn’t really so cold that he was going to freeze to death and that if he could manage to sleep he would.

As he started the third verse of ‘Abide With Me,’ he realised that something didn’t sound right. He carried on singing, wondering at how the brain works, he could have sworn that he wasn’t singing alone that other voices were joining in; dreams were funny things he mused. When he got to the end of the hymn he stopped singing, reasoning that he should try and sleep. Sleep wouldn’t come though, there was a feeling of what he would almost identify as anticipation and he couldn’t still his mind enough to sleep. He shrugged and started in on yet another hymn, ‘All People That on Earth do Dwell’. This time it was unmistakeable, he wasn’t singing on his own.

A chill that had nothing to do with the October evening prickled along James’ spine but he continued to sing, opening his eyes, telling himself that someone else must have come up the stairs and that he hadn’t heard the door, what with the singing. It was still pitch black and he certainly couldn’t tell from where he was whether the door was open. He sat up and stopped singing, edging along the joists to try the door. It was still shut tight and gradually James was aware of the fact that he was becoming more and more apprehensive and aware again of the feeling of anticipation coming from around him.

“Don’t be stupid,” he told himself but the words echoed oddly and in his nervous state he was almost sure that there was someone apart from him moving around. Feeling in equal parts stupid and scared he spoke again, “Is there anyone there?”

There was no answer, he expected no answer but he thought he could hear a rustling coming from the corner which he was convinced had been the place where the bodies had been. “This is stupid,” he said again, settling back where he had been, “it’s amazing the tricks the mind can play. I suppose this is quite close to sensory deprivation, though I could use being deprived of the sensation of being bloody cold.”

He distinctly heard the gasp, a definite gasp when he’d talked about being bloody cold.

“What, you don’t like swearing?” he asked aware of an urge to giggle at the stupidity of it all, “I’d hardly call it swearing, I can do much better than that!” He drew breath, about to let loose a torrent of obscenities when he was interrupted,

“Swearing is bad. Little boys who swear will end in the fiery pit.”

It was a thread of a voice, a young voice and the image of the tiny bodies was instantly before him. For a moment he couldn’t bring himself to speak, but eventually a small thread of reason asserted itself,

“Who’s there? This isn’t funny.”

There was no reply; all that James could hear was the sound of his own breathing, harsh and rapid as adrenaline coursed through his veins. Eventually he spoke again,

“Seriously, who’s there? Come on, if you’ve managed to get in then we might all,” he corrected himself, it was only stupidity that convinced him that there were two of them, “both be able to get out of here and get somewhere warm.”

The reply when it came was even quieter and seemed like a different voice,

“We can’t leave. He’ll get us. Mum, told us to stay here, to stay safe.”

“We?” James asked,

There was another long pause and James had time to wonder if he was losing his mind, time to wonder at the fact that being trapped for so short a time had caused him to start hallucinating,

“My brother and me.” 

“I really must pull myself together,” James muttered to himself, feeling for the door, “either I’m here on my own and imagining things or somehow there’s at least one child trapped up here, whichever it is I need to get either me or us out of here.” He spoke up, “Can you try and help me get the door open?”

“We can’t open the door, Mum told us to stay here.”

There were distinctly two voices but James absolutely refused to think about the two tiny bodies,

“You can come with me,” he said, turning to try and get his fingers under the door again, “I’m a policeman, you know you can trust a policeman.”

As he struggled again with the door he could hear a faint whispered argument and finally the girl spoke,

“If you’re a Bobby, then where’s your helmet?”

And then the second voice chipped in,

“And how come you know so many hymns?”

Bobby? James wondered, he hadn’t heard a policeman called a Bobby since his grandma had died, the feeling of unreality and the fear increased.

“Even Bobbies go to church,” he replied, “keep back, I’m going to try and kick the door in.”

“You can’t do that, he’ll hear and then he’ll come, please, we have to be quiet!”

The voice, the girl’s voice was stronger this time, quiet because she was whispering, not James found himself thinking because she was hardly there, and he wondered, do hallucinations become more tangible when you take notice of them? Still whatever was going on there were children here who needed some comfort some feeling of security,

“Don’t worry, I’ll look after you, he won’t hurt you. When we get out of here we’ll find your mum and everything will be all right, you’ll see. Now, cover your eyes, there might be dust and splinters.”

James lay back on the scanty support of the joists and raised both his feet, hoping he was judging the distance properly he straightened his legs as fast and as hard as he could. It hurt and it didn’t seem to have done any good, but he tried again a couple of times even though all he seemed to be raising was a cloud of dust. He stopped when he was out of breath and he panted for a second or two before he spoke,

“Are you two OK?”

There was a silence and James was torn between hoping that the increased blood flow of all his activity had put his brain right and feeling like he ought to comfort the two children. Feeling like an idiot he tried again,

“Are you two all right?”

“We’re frightened, he’ll be angry.”

“I promise you there’s no one there,” James replied without thinking, “there’s been no one in this house for years.”

“Really?” It was the girl’s voice and James could tell that she was far more scared now, “Jem, don’t listen to what I’m going to say now, put your fingers in your ears and hum ‘God Save the Queen’, just like I taught you when we didn’t want to hear.”

“I don’t want to,” came the mutinous reply, so clearly the reaction of a little brother to a big sister who was telling him what to do that James couldn’t help but smile.

“You have to; I just need to ask this Bobby something.”

There was no further reply but James heard the mangled tune being hummed with a definite hint of sulk. James waited and eventually she spoke again,

“We’re dead, aren’t we?”

It was the question he’d been half expecting but a chill swept through him nonetheless. He’d had to break bad news before, tell people that their other half was never coming home but this was different. He cleared his throat,

“I think you are. I’m sorry.”

“That other man came up here and took us away didn’t he?”

“Your bodies? Yes.”

“We both wanted to go with him, but Mum told us to stay here. She was trying to keep us safe.”

This was the last situation that James had ever expected to use his training in but it kicked in anyway and somehow it turned the fear to an overwhelming sorrow for two young lives over before they’d properly started,

“What’s your name?”

“Mary, and my brother is James, we call him Jem.”

“I’m James as well,” he replied, “but no one calls me Jem, I think I would have liked that.” He swallowed back the lump in his throat before he continued, “Who was your mum hiding you from?”

“Dad,” she replied and when she spoke again it was clear that she was trying to defend her mother, “She was only trying to keep us quiet, but she held her hand over my mouth so tight and I could hear her crying and everything went dark.” There was a long pause before she spoke again, “We’ve been here for such a long time, but I made sure that we did as we were told, we stayed where we were and we kept quiet.”

“I don’t think you need to anymore, Mary,” James replied.

“We must have been as bad as he said we were,” she said, so quietly that James might have missed it, “If we’d been good we’d have gone to Heaven wouldn’t we?”

The theological answers James might have given were swamped by the need to give comfort,

“I think you just got stuck because you were trying to be good, trying to do what your mum told you. I promise you, you can go, you can leave and I’m sure, absolutely sure that you’ll go to Heaven and your mum will be waiting.” In that moment he was surer of that than he had been of any of his faith for years. “Do you want me to pray with you?”

“We’re Catholics,” she replied dubiously and James wondered how long the two of them had been here that she was so unsure about admitting the fact.

“That’s good, so am I. Tell your brother.”

“Jem?”

“Can I listen now?” the sulky tone made James smile even through the tears that were flowing almost unnoticed,

“Yes, you can listen. This policeman has the same name as you and he’s going to pray with us. He says dad isn’t there and if we want we can go now and he says we’ll be with mum.”

“Really?” The voice was nervous and James wondered if he’d realised as his sister had,

“Really.” James and Mary answered at the same time.

There was a long pause and James started to say The Our Father and both voices joined in. He moved on to the Hail Mary and the other voices began to fade as he moved to The Gloria and by the end he felt that he was on his own. He said the Hail Mary again, for the Increase of Hope and finished with the Fatima Prayer said for the unknown mother and father. 

He felt exhausted and stayed where he was recruiting his strength to make another attempt at the door when he began to hear noises, someone moving about. He called out,

“Help! I’m stuck in the roof space!”

“James?” The voice was a blessed relief and so was the light of the torch that Robbie had clearly had the sense to bring with him as it shone through the crack between the door and the frame, “Hang on a minute,”

“Sir? I was looking to see if this is where they’d been, the bodies I mean,”

“Yeah, I’d worked that out mysel’” Robbie replied, as the door was finally opened, “right let’s have you out of there. You’re lucky that you didn’t go crashing through the joists; this place is all but falling down. Come on, you must be freezing, let’s get you home.”

James stood and tried to get the blood back flowing, he was shivering and he continued to shiver as they went gingerly down the stairs and out into a night that seemed ridiculously bright to him. Robbie held the car door open for him and James gratefully got in. He was even more grateful for the car’s heater.

 

Later, at home with a brew in his hands they discussed the ‘case’,

“They’d been here for decades, I’m sure of it,” James said but then he stopped speaking, he wanted to tell Robbie about Jem and Mary and their unknown mother but how could he? As it was Robbie interrupted him,

“You weren’t the only one who couldn’t leave it be, Laura pulled in some favours and got some information for us, the two of them, a boy and a girl, had been dead for at least a hundred years, impossible to tell cause of death, but it seemed peaceful she said. If we want to know more it’ll be a matter of historical research, not a murder enquiry.”

“I want to at least find their names,” James replied, 

“They really got to you, didn’t they?”

“I guess, they’d been on their own for so long,” he caught himself on the point of saying too much again, “apparently, I just want them to have their names, see if we can find where there mother is buried so that…” he bit back tears again as he remembered Mary’s voice joined with his in the Our Father.

Robbie patted his knee,

“Aye, we’ll make sure of that much at least.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope the mangling of dogma in this doesn't upset anyone! The text of the prayers can all be found on Wikipedia among lots of other places.


End file.
